As I mentioned yesterday, I had the chance to do an interview with UFC President Dana White on Tuesday afternoon to discuss this week’s UFC on FOX 7 event.
You can read the entire interview, which was done for Bullz-Eye.com, here.
Below are a few excerpts from the interview:
One of the things I was really excited about with this deal with FOX was being able to bring big fights back to free television. That has always been my goal since we bought this company. Coming off “The Ultimate Fighter” finale last weekend, every fight was sick, it was an amazing finale. We pulled 1.7 million viewers. We were the highest-rated thing on network and cable television with males 18-34. This fight on FOX is going to be a big one. Ben Henderson is defending his lightweight title again, this time against Gilbert Melendez, who is probably the toughest guy at 155 pounds that has never had a shot in the UFC. Everybody thinks this guy might be the best in the world, so we are going to find out on Saturday.
I have been thrilled with the Strikeforce fighters. A lot of bad stuff happened at Strikeforce. A lot of guys didn’t get paid for a while and these guys are hungry. First of all, they are happy to be back fighting and getting paid to do it. These guys want to prove to the world that they can fight and become the best in the world. The UFC is the place to do that. These guys have been fighting like maniacs, and I love it.
UFC President Dana White is a busy man, but he is passionate about the things he cares about.
With the UFC set to hold its seventh event on FOX this Saturday (its third of four events in April alone), I had the chance to speak with him for an interview for Bullz-Eye.com.
The interview will come out later this week, but I wanted to post White’s thoughts on what happened on Monday at the Boston Marathon. White previously lived in Boston and is a known supporter of the Boston pro-sports teams.
“It really bummed me out because when the city that you lived in gets attacked like that….you know, you think about when I lived there, we used to watch the race all the time, we would walk up and down Newbury Street. It was just a disgustingly, cowardly act. It makes me sick. To attack a race like that, where people have trained to run this thing from all over the world and their friends and family are waiting at the finish line for them, it’s just so (expletive) cowardly that it makes me sick. The one thing about the city of Boston and the United States as a whole, it’s one of those things where people will all come together, just like 9/11, and the city will bounce back. It’s just unfortunate that….not to mention that it’s the most popular marathon in the world and the oldest marathon in this country, to just do something like that is just….ugh. I can’t even put it into words without going crazy and sounding like an absolute psycho.”
I will post the rest of the interview with White later in the week.
Dana White once stated that he’d never have a women’s bout in the octagon that is the UFC.
White didn’t feel there was a market there.
Not only is there a market in women’s MMA, but the market is rising at a very fast pace.
Ronda Rousey put the women on the map in the UFC with her win over Liz Carmouche in the main event of UFC 157 in February. Though the fight went just one round, it was exciting from start to finish and featured great grappling and striking.
On Saturday, in the season finale of The Ultimate Fighter 17, the UFC held its second women’s bout, with Miesha Tate taking on Cat Zingano.
These two bantamweights put on an even better show than Rousey and Carmouche did, going nearly 15 minutes before Zingano finished Tate with an impressive flurry of knees and elbows.
The crowd was electric for the fight, knowing the winner would face Rousey next and get a spot coaching against Rousey in The Ultimate Fighter Season 18. The two battled it out on the feet and on the ground for the entire duration of the fight. Each showed tremendous skills and a determination to win.
When the fight ended, it felt like the fans and viewers had just witnessed the main event. It is clear that the fans appreciate a good fight, and the women have been giving the fans great fights.
White isn’t stupid either. He is trying to capitalize on the buzz surrounding the women’s bantamweight division by having Rousey and Zingano coach TUF next season. With Rousey already pulling in over 400,000 pay-per-view buys, and Zingano stealing the show Saturday night, there is a lot of evidence that the UFC should look to expand its women’s crop to more divisions.
The women have showed an aggression that has been lacking in some of the marquee men’s fights as of late. The fans always want to see two fighters leave it all in the cage, and the women are doing exactly that.
I personally am excited to see upcoming women’s bouts because the bar has been set very high by Rousey and Zingano.
The UFC has become a marketing machine. Here’s an interesting article from Fast Company that addresses this topic in depth.
On the afternoon before one of the biggest mixed-martial-arts fights of 2012, a group of Ultimate Fighting Championship employees takes up position in a sun-blasted parking lot outside the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino. It’s July in Las Vegas. It’s 103 degrees of unpleasant. And it’s about to get worse–because UFC president Dana White just tweeted their location. White is giving away 20 $1,200 tickets to this weekend’s UFC 148 (most fight cards are named by number), headlined by a rematch between Brazilian middleweight champion Anderson Silva and his American nemesis, Chael Sonnen. Any fan who shows up within 20 minutes with a can of UFC-branded Edge shave gel will be entered into a ticket raffle.
It takes less than 10 seconds for Isiah and Dominique Quintanilla, teenage brothers from Visalia, California, to materialize from the back stairs with cans. “Some guy offered us $66 for one,” Isiah says. UFC fans, it seems, had cleaned out drugstores on the Las Vegas Strip.
Minutes later, a horde bursts from the casino–mostly men in the UFC’s coveted 18- to 34-year-old demographic, but women, too, in a dead sprint. They stampede toward the UFC team, grooming products in hand. Some hurdle a chain in the parking lot. One woman tries to scale a fence and bloodies her knee. In the fight business, these fans are known as hardcores. They buy the UFC’s pay-per-view shows, which blend wrestling, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Muay Thai, and other combat styles into an action-packed, often-bloody sport known as mixed-martial arts, or MMA. They buy apparel and merchandise. Above all, they buy into a UFC lifestyle that celebrates everyone’s inner warrior.
In case you have been under a rock today, UFC 151 has been cancelled.
The short story is Dan Henderson injured his knee and couldn’t fight next Saturday, prompting the UFC to offer Jon Jones a replacement opponent of Chael Sonnen. Jones, after speaking with his team, declined to take the fight on such short notice.
So, the UFC, instead of finding a new main event, or just running with the card they setup sans the main event, decided to just axe the event altogether.
In the process, they completely threw the light heavyweight champion under the bus.
Normally, I am on Dana White’s side of things. He is a hot head, no doubt, but he usually tells it like it is.
However, blaming Jones for the canceling of an event is simply a convenient way to take the blame off of himself and the UFC.
First off, canceling an entire UFC event is a big deal. It impacts the fighters, the venue, the host city and those that would be working the event.
Many fighters rely on a small paycheck from fighting on the under card simply to make ends meet. Due to the UFC’s venom spewed at Jones, many of those fighters are now taking their anger and frustration out on the champion as well.
But, let’s all take a deep breath and take into consideration two things:
Just a few weeks after Vitor Belfort announced he would be taking on Cung Le at UFC 139, he has now had to announce he will not be fighting after all.
According to MMAFighting.com, Belfort suffered an injury that will force him out of the fight. But, the UFC was quick to find a replacement, as Wanderlei Silva will step in to take on Le at UFC 139.
Wanderlei Silva will make his return to the Octagon on November 19 in San Jose, when he takes on former Strikeforce middleweight champion Cung Le at UFC 139.
UFC President Dana White announced today that Vitor Belfort had to pull out of his fight with Le because of an injury, and as a result Silva will step in and take it.
Belfort vs. Le had the makings of a great fight because of the speed and quickness both have in their striking.
However, Le vs. Silva should be just as good, if not better, because Silva is relentless and is willing to be knocked out in order to put on a show. Belfort is more hesitant in his striking. With Silva now in, expect fireworks and an explosive knockout when he and Cung Le face off.
I see your Nate Marquardt and raise you a Nick Diaz.
In one of the most bizarre situations in UFC history, Strikeforce Welterweight Champion Nick Diaz has been removed from the main event of UFC 137 against UFC champ, Georges St. Pierre, after going AWOL on the company and skipping two press conferences in two days.
After missing three different flights to head to Toronto for a press conference to promote UFC 137 on Tuesday, Diaz stopped communicating with Dana White and the UFC and was nowhere to be found on Wednesday, for another press conference to promote the event in Las Vegas.
White announced at the beginning of the presser that Diaz was removed from the fight and co-main eventer, Carlos Condit, will take on GSP for the title.
Diaz’ trainer, Cesar Gracie, expressed his frustration with his own fighter to MMAJunkie.com.
“I don’t blame Dana White on this at all,” Gracie today told MMAjunkie.com ”This is a professional company, and Nick is a 28-year-old man.”
“I’ve stuck up for Nick, even when he was wrong before,” Gracie said. “But he’s let a lot of people down. He’s let his team down. We all bought plane tickets to Vegas. We got hotel rooms booked, paid for. We’ve got all that, and Nick just decided not to go to something he’s supposed to. They’re paying him a lot of money, and in this economy where people don’t have money, he’s blessed. He should be thanking God every night how blessed he is.
“And instead, he’s not getting on a plane to go to Vegas. I’m extremely disappointed. He’s done a lot of stuff, but this is the worst of it. If I were him, I would be begging Dana White to get my job back and work your way up to a title shot at some point.”
“I’m not a psychologist,” he said. “I personally think there’s some kind of social anxiety happening here with Nick. Dana said, ‘You’ve got to play the game this much.’ And this isn’t even playing the game. This is about being a man and being responsible. And Nick has done neither in this situation.
“He’s a great jiu-jitsu guy. He’s a great fighter. I’m saying this because I care deeply about the guy. He’s one of my black belts. But in this situation, he is 100 percent wrong, and he got what he deserved.”
There are so many side stories to this happening, but clearly the main one is the odd behavior of Diaz. I sincerely hope he is of good physical and mental health, but he has a lot of explaining to do.
He has certainly blown the greatest opportunity of his pro career and may never step foot inside a Zuffa cage or octagon again.
Carlos Condit may be a tougher opponent for St. Pierre, but we will break down that fight another time.
Also lost in the mix is that B.J. Penn is now without an opponent, as he was set to face Condit at UFC 137 in the co-main event.
The UFC has been big with their announcements and another big one dropped on Tuesday.
The organization released through the L.A. Times that on Dec. 30, Alistair Overeem will make his UFC debut against none other than Brock Lesnar.
Brock Lesnar will return to the UFC octagon in a five-round main event Dec. 30 at MGM Grand in Las Vegas, facing newly signed former Strikeforce heavyweight champion Alistair Overeem.
“Brock is a big name, a dangerous guy, and this is a dream matchup,” Overeem told The Times on Tuesday, just after signing a standard UFC fight contract in the office of Chairman Lorenzo Fertitta. “Brock’s a big guy, an exciting wrestler with his takedowns.
“I want to see this fight myself. Overall, I’m a different fighter. A striker, athletic, big. These are going to be two big trucks going at it on a collision course.”
This fight will be as anticipated as the Velasquez vs. dos Santos bout on Nov. 12, if not more, as Lesnar has the drawing power and Overeem was the last Strikeforce champion.
It is expected that this will be the main event of UFC 141 from Las Vegas and will take place on a Friday night, with New Year’s Eve being on a Saturday this year.
In terms of the fight, this should be explosive and very interesting. Overeem has the clear striking edge, but will he be able to fend off the explosive takedown attempts of Lesnar?
Either way, I don’t see this fight lasting too long.
The UFC wanted a premiere fight for its FOX television premiere and that is just what it has.
Dana White announced via conference all on Friday that Cain Velasquez will defend his UFC heavyweight championship against top contender, Junior dos Santos, on Nov. 12 to headline the show.
The fight was originally scheduled to take place on Nov. 19 as the headline of UFC 139 from San Jose, but will now take place at The Pond in Anaheim.
White also indicated that this is the only fight scheduled for the 1-hour FOX premiere and if the fight ends quickly, they will air undercard bouts that took place earlier in the night.
Velasquez hasn’t fought since winning the championship from Brock Lesnar last October. He is 9-0 in his career.
Dos Santos is 13-1 and coming off a dominant win over Shane Carwin at UFC 131 in June. He has clearly established himself as being the top contender for Velasquez.
While these two may not be the highest-profile of fighters to the outside MMA fan, this is an amazing fight to get on free television.
The UFC is hoping for fireworks for this bout to really draw in a big audience and take the UFC to a new level. Hopefully this fight does just that.
The new main event for UFC 139 has yet to be announced but White indicated that it was in the works.
As I mentioned yesterday, I had the chance to do an interview with UFC President Dana White on Tuesday afternoon to discuss this week’s UFC on FOX 7 event.
Dana White once stated that he’d never have a women’s bout in the octagon that is the UFC.
In case you have been under a rock today, 
I see your Nate Marquardt and raise you a Nick Diaz.
